What Am I Doing With My Life?

Sometimes, when I’m sitting in my cubicle at work and freezing my butt off because there’s inexplicably an air conditioning vent spewing frigid air at me in mid October, I wonder what on Earth I’m doing with my life.

I have a finite amount of time to spend on this planet. I can’t help but think of those lines from the Mary Oliver poem, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” I occasionally start to feel that I am perhaps squandering it. I want my life to mean something.

Might I direct all of you to the song “Twenty Something” by Jamie Cullum?

It’s pretty applicable to my life right now and also the lives of lots of other people I know (who are in their twenties). I first heard it in high school and liked it a lot back then, but it becomes ever more relevant as the years pass.

I recently read this post about vocation. It talks about three different categories of work: a job, a career, and a vocation. In the post, they define a job as sort of a means to an end and a career as working to advance through the ranks and get achievements.

Now, I have had some “jobs” before, and I honestly liked them a lot. I guess part of that comes from the fact that I worked with kids a bunch and that never really seems like “busy work” because there’s always more going on when you’re helping another person learn and grow and change. But I honestly like working. I like feeling useful and helpful and doing things. I am pretty task-oriented. I like the feeling of getting something done. I did realize after three years of college that a career really doesn’t appeal to me at all. I am not interested in climbing a ladder and trying to get ahead of those around me. Competition isn’t really my thing. And I’m okay with that.

A vocation, on the other hand, is like a true calling. Work that doesn’t feel like work at all because we find it fulfilling and satisfying all on its own without paychecks or accomplishments. A vocation is what everybody wants. Or should want. Something that makes us feel like we were put on the earth for a reason and are making the most of what little time we have here.

The problem is, I have no idea how to find my vocation. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t involve sitting in that cubicle though. Which brings me back to the original point: what am I doing with my life?

I think it's okay not to know, but it doesn't really feel okay not to know. It feels like treading water in the middle of the ocean; necessary to stay afloat but ultimately pointless if there's no chance of finding and proceeding toward the direction of dry land.

I had a conversation with a friend this summer about how hard it is not knowing. For instance, I've always wanted to be a mom but I don't want to spend my whole life waiting for that to happen. If I knew that it would, I could better enjoy my time now, and if I knew that it wouldn't, I could adjust to that idea and figure out what to do with my life instead. It's the not knowing that is such a challenge. It's hard to make peace with something not happening while also still hoping and wishing for it. My friend said I better figure out how to live with it because that's all of life right there. And of course he was right. But knowing that I need to make peace with not knowing doesn't actually make it easier. It's still hard.

I still find myself wondering what I am doing with my life and what I should be doing with my life and what I could be doing with my life on a literal DAILY basis. I have some ideas- some realistic and some optimistic and some outrageous- that I occasionally take steps toward. I have some plans that I make small progresses toward. I keep thinking and pondering and hoping.

And some days that's enough to quiet the pulse of panic I feel when I think about whether I'm wasting my life. It's enough to be snuggling my niece most nights. It's enough to just keep breathing.